Page:Tamil studies.djvu/237

210 ed masters in the religious field. It also witnessed the collection and arrangement of the sacred hymns of Appar, Sambandar, Sundarar, Manikkavachakar and other Saiva saints into eleven Tirumurais by Nambiyandar Nambi, and of the twelve Vaishanava Alvars into Nalayira Prabandam (Book of 4,000 Psalms) by Sri Nathamuni.

(4) M. Vinson assigns to the fifth period—fifteenth and sixteenth centuries—the appearance of the Vaishnavas. It is here, we think, that his ignorance of the history of Tamil literature, especially of the Vaishnava religion, is most marked. He has not studied or rightly understood the origin and growth of the Vaishnava sect in South India. Perhaps he was misled by the incorrect statement of Dr. Caldwell, that the twelve Vaishnava saints were the disciples of Sri Ramanuja Charya, the great reformer of the twelfth century. We may mention that the fifth period of M. Vinson is distinguished for the best controversial literature on the Vaishnava religion and for the scholarly commentaries thereon, in the Manipravala or composite style peculiar only to the Jains and the Vaishnava Brahmans.

Proposed Classification: None of the Tamil works bear a certain date; yet they are not wanting in criteria to enable the reader to assign to them a definite period in the literary development. For first there exists a difference in language demarcating the most important periods ; and secondly the deve-